Chris Jericho on Playing Demented Cult Leader in Shudder’s ‘Dark Match’ & State of All Elite Wrestling

Scott Fishman January 27, 2025, 7:15 am

From an Inner Circle to an Appreciation Society to a Learning Tree, Chris Jericho has led his share of followers in All Elite Wrestling. So playing a maniacal pro wrestler turned cult leader named The Prophet in the new Shudder movie Dark Match may not be seen as much of a stretch. The horror offering centers on a small-time promoter who takes his motley crew of misfit wrestlers to a well-paying gig in the middle of nowhere.

It’s not long before they start to realize things aren’t quite what they seem with Jericho’s Prophet revealing his devious plans for the night’s card. The cast also includes Ayisha Issa (Transplant), Steven Ogg (The Walking Dead, Westworld), Sara Canning (The Vampire Diaries), Michael Eklund (The Call) and Jonathan Cherry (Goon).

Jericho, who also is the lead singer of the rock band Fozzy, is also no stranger to the genre, seen most recently as a part of The Terrifier franchise. Ahead of the premiere, we sat down with the Ring of Honor World Champion on how art imitates life and doesn’t.

Shudder

This combines two loves of yours in horror and wrestling. What did you think of the script when you first read it?

Chris Jericho: My first impression was I didn’t want to do it. I wasn’t excited about it because most wrestling movies are bad, especially wrestling horror movies. Wrestlers versus zombies or aliens, that sort of vibe. Two things that stood out. One, I got an offer, which is a rare thing in acting where you don’t have an audition. Two, the guy who wrote it was Lowell Dean, who did a couple of movies called WolfCop. I was a big fan of those. I read the script reluctantly and realized 20 pages in that it was really good. It’s not so much a wrestling movie as a really great movie with wrestling as a backdrop.

The wrestling was treated with respect. It was very well done in terms of how he was able to capture a small time territory. It does take place in the late 1980s. I started out in 1990. I’ve been there. This is my early days in wrestling in Alberta or Manitoba driving in a van with 10 other people and going past signs that say no services for the next two hundred kilometers. He really nailed that part of it. That’s always a hard part when you do a wrestling movie. I’ve never seen it done well aside from maybe The Wrestler with Mickey Rourke. Most of the other ones are too cheesy, too campy, they don’t get it. They don’t understand what wrestling is. He really nailed this, so I was interested in pursuing the part.

Where did you pull from for inspiration when it came to the Prophet?

I really approached this character not from a wrestler standpoint because I didn’t want people to go there. That was another reason why I was a little hesitant to take the part. I didn’t want to see my name and say, “Chris Jericho is in a movie.” I wanted people to forget that it’s Chris Jericho and just see the leader. I think as the movie goes on I feel that happens. When I first appear people may say, “Oh, it’s Chris Jericho with the cowboy hat.” Then you see the darker side and all the layers, Then maybe you stopped seeing that.

Also, the final scene is in a ring, but I didn’t want to do wrestling moves. I wanted it to be a fight. We put together a really great choreographed fight scene, which I thought worked as well. I think the cliché would have been, “Jericho is in there. He is going to hit a Codebreaker.” That was the last thing I wanted to do because I don’t want you to see me but this character. All those things contributed to where it was almost this big task to take this part and show this was more than Jericho from AEW being in this horror movie.

Steven Ogg (Shudder)

How was it working with Steven?

Steven I was a big fan on The Walking Dead. I didn’t even know about his Grand Theft Auto career, which is way huger. My very first scene on set was coming out on the balcony at the party and Steven is there. It was like “Okay man. This is your very first scene. There is no warming up. You have to be ready to go…Steven Ogg is right there. I better be f*ck’in great.” I worked really hard on that.

Steven and Ayisha, who plays Miss Behave, did a great job learning how to wrestle in a lot of ways. Their wrestling scenes are pretty much them. That is hard to do. Wrestling isn’t just something you learn in two weeks of basic training, but they really figured it out. That is one of the reasons I think the movie works because when there are wrestling scenes, they look good. They don’t look like just actors being thrown into this world. They look like actors who have been doing this for years. That’s not easy.

This comes after your work in the Terrifier films. How is it for you to be a part of this genre now? I feel like it’s a bucket list for you to be in these movies.

I’m a scream king! Obviously, I’ve been working on acting for years. I’ve had some good parts, but this has been a really great year for me to be in Terrifier and Dark Match. Those are two separate movies and two different parts, but Terrifier 3 was the number one movie in America a couple of months ago. You can’t beat that sort of coverage and press and success. It is a bucket list to be in a horror movie.

At the same time, if I wanted to be in a horror movie and just die, I could have been in 50 of them. It’s not about that. It’s about being in a good movie with good people behind it and playing something a little more interesting. The Terrifier movies there were never supposed to be Jericho in Terrifier 3. Something happened in the sequel where another movie had the same ending, and they had to reshoot. Then all of a sudden a character that was supposed to be one and done is now in two Terrifier movies. That’s pretty rare to make it into two Terrifier movies. That was cool. They are shorter parts, but you take two-and-a-half minutes of each, that’s five minutes of screen time in two iconic movies. I’ll take it.

It’s like pro wrestling. Maximize your minutes.

You just nailed it. I couldn’t have said it better myself. To have that experience and exposure, it really was a big deal. Then going into Dark Match and going from that. I’ve been really expanding and enjoying the chances I’ve been given. You have to take these chances, and like you said, maximize your minutes. By the way, don’t think I wasn’t timing those parts! When Terrifier 3 came out on streaming, I timed how long the part was. I wanted to know.

I just saw The Last Showgirl and Dave Bautista continues to show such amazing range as an actor. Do you find his success along with Dwayne Johnson and John Cena have made it easier to go for different parts?

I don’t think it’s ever easy. For whatever reason, I think there is always a little bit of misconception about wrestlers. I will say it has opened up a lot. I will say this. I think Dave may be the best actor out of all of them. Then you see Adam Copeland who just received an Emmy nomination for Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Then you’re like f*ckin’ hell. There is a guy who came out of nowhere. Then there is no bigger star than The Rock and Cena isn’t far behind him. I think it’s good.

I can’t worry about that though. I’m not going to be put in the wrestler box anyway. I don’t have that physique. I’m not a big, giant guy. All I can do is continue to do the best parts I can, take the roles I’m offered and audition. I don’t think anyone really likes to audition. That’s how it works though. It’s just like wrestling. You don’t just go to the main event of WrestleMania in your first year. If you do, you probably won’t last that much more after that because you don’t know what you’re doing. Every part is very important in the big picture as I continue to build that side of the resume the same way I’ve done in music, wrestling, podcasting and cruise ships and whatever the hell I’m doing.

AEW

I’m just amazed at how you’re able to do some much as this Renaissance man entertainer. Do you sleep? How do you manage it all?

The secret is time management. It really is. I think people think I’m a lot busier than I am. I am busy, but I spent a lot of time at home. Another thing is I don’t mind the travel. If I have a day off, I don’t mind flying home for a day. There is that side of it, but you also have to love what you do. The good thing for me is I never did anything for money. I didn’t get into wrestling for money or music for money or anything. I did it because I love it. If you do something because you love it, the money will follow.

To this day, I do things because I want to do it. Do I still like wrestling? F*ck, if I didn’t like it I wouldn’t do it. Trust me. If you enjoy what you’re doing, you make the time for it. You also still delegate and find that off time. I think I have a really good balance of what I’m doing and need to do to make everything work. It’s like that old keep the plates spinning on The Ed Sullivan Show. Just keep the plates spinning, and if one of those plates starts to waiver, it’s probably not important anyway so I don’t mind letting it fall and moving on.

You’re the Ring of Honor champ right now. What do you see for the future of that brand? One challenge I see is having a full distinctive roster separate from AEW. I know that it comes down to finding a bigger viewing platform for the company.

I think the fact Tony Khan put the title on me again is because Chris Jericho as the Ring of Honor World Champion, streaming platforms might pay more attention to it. I know Tony is working on that and has a couple of offers. I don’t know if they are offers he wants. I think he wants to try and expand those offers. I’m a thousand percent sure that he will continue to work to get a streaming deal because when he sets his mind on something, he usually makes it happen. He has invested fully in the Ring of Honor brand and product. I have no doubt there will be a bigger platform for Ring of Honor at some point.

How would you describe the state of AEW in 2025?

I think we’ve done a good job reconfiguring the buildings the last few weeks. I feel the crowds have been much hotter in these smaller buildings. I mean, listen, I don’t think it matters how big the venue is. It matters how hot the crowd is. We saw the Hammerstein Ballroom had an amazing look. A great energy. The same thing happened the last few weeks in Charlotte and Athens, Georgia. There is so much importance on television revenue in this day and age with AEW getting its new deal with Warner Brothers Discovery.

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That’s nothing but pure success and pure profit. There might be some naysayers that may want to predict the doom of AEW because of smaller buildings, but it’s smart business. I think the product is much hotter now because the crowds are hotter. It’s all indicative. We’re excited to go to Australia for show there. We’re excited for Texas in July [for All In], which is seven months away. There are people saying, “Well, they only sold 10,000 tickets.” Yeah, it’s seven months away. We’re going to have 25,000 people in that place. People buy tickets during the last week nowadays. Trust me, I know from Fozzy. I think there are a lot of positives. I think our wrestling is the best in the business. I think our roster is the best in the business. There are other things we can work on, but that’s any company. I’m very happy and proud of where we are right now as a company.

Dark Match premiere, January 31, Shudder